On The Write Path

Ramblings from Romania 24-29 October

RAMBLINGS

Whoosh of air when the train is moving and doors stay open. Discomforting, quiet in the 8 seat cabin. The restrooms disgusting (dirty, hole straight to the tracks below). Slow train to Bucharest. Clouds finally parting lighting the countryside, late autumnal, desolate.
29.octombrie.2016. On the way to Bucharest from Brasov.

Race, religion, nationality are human constructs. None are necessary.
28.octombrie.2016.

You blinded me with your blaze of blue eyes when I first met you. I didn't mind. Being sunburnt was well worth the price; your voice a salve to old wounds.
28.octombrie.2016

Darkness envelops the cave. Light glistens off gold and silver, crystal chandeliers. Here prayers are spare offerings under iconic visions that glare down on me. The marble floor and carpets echo silence, a rustling of papers, an open-closing door. This red pad protects posteriors from carved wood chairs. The sign of the cross, the kiss, quick comings and goings and those that linger mute, unseen. White lilies and chrysanthemums. One sneeze and I leave before another embarrasses me.
25-27 octombrie.2016. Probably Brasov.

Wait wearing on this wet day of delays. A taste of french fries and cheese, of bean and pork soup, of listening to the report... one hour behind now two. Chatter in a language I try to understand. Merci means thank-you. Da means yes. A crossroad of culture sitting around me... so unaware of anything beyond the rain, the late late train. Then on the train, wagon 4 seat 95, a compartment for 6... we exchange a few words, a few gestures. Little works but we're on our way... slowly... falling further behind.
25.octombrie.2016. In the train station in Sighisoara on the way to Brasov.

5 pm and the square gets empty. A man enters, cigarette to mouth, lemonade in hand. no breeze follows the wake of a bird on high. It's cooling under puffy sky. Frost will soon kill the plants snuggling in cracks by unattended walls... but the geraniums will blaze red behind lace curtains. If one waits one notices the covered stairway to the church, the elk antlers jutting from a corner. The eyes of the hooves stare down at us. laughter. movement. A city-out-of-season seeks to sleep.
25.octombrie.2016. Sighisoara, main square in the citadela.

Yellow aspen quakes; green willows weep; I love you. How many clichés fit into a life sentence of emptiness, fill it up with the taste of cornpuffs, the sound of buses. What must we learn; what can we know. Old catacombs told me nothing today. Tomorrow? Another city, more sights to see. I'd see your face engraved on sky, your voice lifting with the birds... but I remain deaf but never dumb. I'd share these hills that turn rust in October as trees tire in dimming light. I wish to remember you as brilliant colors: red blood, calm blue and sunny yellow. If we could touch... my coming Winter would gladly wait for Spring.
25.octombrie.2016. Sighisoara.

While chestnuts fall from autumnal trees, I sit on the grave of Wilhelm Gunne to stare at stones engraven long ago now embracing the hill that would slough without them. I catch my breath to watch wings float by. All passes through the coming Winter; not all revives come Spring. Orange and golden yellow leaves strewn over Saxons whose sons have abandoned this place. Yet, flowers cry out that some remain. The city below: jangle of traffic, a barking dog. Here the centuries wash our memories of the wars of living, and leave only peace.
25.octombrie.2016. Sighisoara in the cemetery.

Two boys playing. Medias... some get off and some get on. Teenagers and music fills the wagon, then moves. We sit as the sun warms the day, our way to Sighisoara is slow, a tempo of former times in a train as old as us or older. Graffiti , trash, livened by a culture of joy and laughter, unrestrained by rules. The calm when the conductor passes. They still want to play. They dance. Then get off. Quiet except for the rails. I get up get rid of trash, take a pee—a meagre watering for whatever struggles to grow between the tracks.
24.octombrie.2016. Medias between Sibiu and Sighisoara.

© Kåre Enga

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